Dear enforcers,
Whether you are an administrator, a teacher, a faculty member, or even a parent, I get it. I understand your wanting of a dress code. For private schools, it’s about the look of unity and community. It is your right to have and enforce one, but it is not your right to slut shame girls (for the majority) for the length of their skirts. Shaming a girl for showing her knees and thighs is so incredibly wrong. It’s not about the fact that she isn’t following the dress code; it’s the fact that you are saying she is being disruptive, suggestive, and promiscuous that makes it wrong of you. Shaming a girl the length of her skirt because it affects the learning of the opposite sex is essentially slut shaming. Not only is slut shaming wrong, it’s unnecessary especially in a school environment. Calling a girl suggestive and bringing a negative connotation to the situation. Blaming a girl for the length of her skirt builds the idea in her mind that she needs to fix what she wears in order to help the male population focus.When boys are caught violating the dress code, it is never for them being distracting. It's for them not following the dress code. By making her feel as if she is the reason that boys cannot pay attention to the lesson plan creates the idea that she needs to, as a woman, dress to please or suppress the desires of a man. The idea that a girl is being suggestive for showing her knees or her thighs is the same idea that people have when it comes to rape. “Oh, well did you see what she was wearing?” and “Well she was wearing scandalous clothing” are common defenses for accused rapist. By starting to say how a girl is being suggestive now, in high school, leads to the overall societal problem she might have to face when she is older, or even worse, now. It is not the clothing that distracts the boys. It is not the clothing that instigates someone to rape.
I've been told by a faculty member at my high school that I need to cover up my legs so I don't distract "the boys" by both female and male staff. Their reasoning isn't because it violates the dress code but because having my skirt 2 inches shorter the boys in my class will not focus on what is happening in Beowulf.
Respect towards other beings bodies and choices is not implemented or preached enough to children. Respect of someone’s body and personal space is needed for both sexes. Girls cannot be held accountable for the hormonal desire of men, and vice versa. You cannot blame one sex for another sexes behavior. The defense of the girls knees and thighs is promiscuous is adding fuel to the fire society has created that if a girl is sexually assaulted or raped, her outfit is to blame. It is adding to the fire that slut shaming is okay, and labeling someone a slut is a bad thing. In a school environment, the girls should have one focus, one aim, and that is to get the best education and to follow the rules. It is not our purpose, our job, as girls to solve the problem of the male desire. If you have a problem with a uniform skirt being too short, use the defense that is is breaking the rules, not that she is being a slut or “asking for it” because the more that is being used, the longer it will take to solve that ignorant reasoning. So, to the enforcer, I hope you see how what you say affects a girl. How because of what you say, you make her think that it is her job to suppress another human’s desire.
Yours Truly,
Avery
